Post #9,458
9/17/01 1:21:43 PM
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The gravest mistake of the '60s peace movement . .
. . was the presumption that if one side was wrong, the other must be right.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #9,464
9/17/01 1:44:41 PM
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I came of age in the immediate aftermath of that.
And in the middle of the Boston busing crisis. Perhaps because of all this, I generally presume the worst of both sides, and try to invent a third side to stand on.
If I can't manage that, I throw my support behind the lesser evil. Beggars can't be choosers.
[link|http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/marlowe/index.html|http://www.angelfir...e/index.html]
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Post #9,503
9/17/01 3:51:38 PM
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But we must all remember...
that we cannot overcome and adversary by becoming just like him.
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Post #9,535
9/17/01 7:09:30 PM
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Why just the sixties?
The digitization of thought - and calling that 'Reason' is the very crucible of the "world of duality", the fiction lived by many. Ever to postulate Right --> just-One Right --> that 'Righteousness' which lies behind every atrocity committed in the name of a (Loving God) or ___.
Ditto Wrong. Digital thought makes for black&white without gray. I don't believe the '60s was other than typical, though most of the slogans were orthogonal to "the enemy of my enemy" = 'The One' creating the many 'opposites'.
Still, behind that expected confusion did lie a certain and IME unprecedented.. Hopefulness that we actually could change some of the more egregious attitudes du jour. Now, in the wreckage, and in the sell-outs to that which many came to *know they despised* (for they had indeed 'identified' some of that, within and without) --
Came the cynicism. The succesion of assassinations through '68 demonstrated just how dead was the dream, and how resilient was 'business as usual' - culminating in the war-crimes of Vietnam. All this nailed that small hope.. tightly in a hermetically sealed coffin. The morphing into a $-besotted me-me-me culture followed as inexorably as the plumber's Principle, shit flows downhill.
It will take much of a shock, perhaps more than Tuesday's even (?) to see again that Hopefulness which many of the '60s - part-'70s experienced. (Of course, should we generally.. cease to hope - we're already dead).
A.
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Post #9,652
9/18/01 9:17:23 PM
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It was all a lie, Ashton.
Virtually all movements in the 60's were drug-induced. You get stoned, you can love veryone. Come Down, and your lovers don't seem so sweet anymore.
bcnu,
Mikem
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Post #9,655
9/18/01 10:00:44 PM
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Exaggeration.
A quite small group was all-stoned all the time - the usual Gaussian. There are probably dozens of stat PhD's with an attempt at guesstimating drug(s) usage and frequency. I'd estimate that the plurality were less stoned than the standard booze folk, so the generalization fails IMhO. And.. I was there (if only in a tiny % of all the there, there is). And the Berkeley area surely represents a larger average usage than most any other place I can think of.
Nobody I hung out with could have been called a 'habitual' user - some never - there were better highs; still are. (Coke is still the preferred toy of the Yuppie me-me class and it's so Murican: instant gratification. And you can brag about the cost with your $-obsessed friends. Buy a gram today - buy some plane tickets for bin Laden et al. Our drug 'war' funds their war.)
Many more than I believe you realize, were in fact working rather diligently on a number of "issues" (however fated) - and drugs would have obviously interfered, except as an occasional weekend recreation. Urban legends we create right after TLAs - no?
The President's Analyst was still a gas..
A.
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Post #9,656
9/18/01 10:09:34 PM
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I remain dubious.
Are you *that* much older than I?
Admittedly, I was really a child of the 60's (born 9/9/59), but my father was a high school teacher and his students "baby-sat" my brother and me. This was in Southern California. Still, I wonder how much social progress was owed to the "heightened since of awareness" (apologies to Leary) generated from an artificially generated state of euphoria? Perhaps it was simply that the almost imperceivable minority of clearer minds were given greater voice owing to those of the drug-induced state of awareness? Did the progressives have a go only because a significant portion of the great, mindless American public was too stoned to notice? I think so.
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Post #9,659
9/18/01 11:14:41 PM
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Many were very serious - and some still are.
The era was not nearly so drug sodden as the Hollywood image that has been built for it. The drugs were also very weak compared to what they are now. You could puff happily all night for what a couple of hits will do you for now.
Yes, there were "events" that were drugged out, but they were few enough to be legendary.
Yes, there were "drug abusers", and I knew some, but just about all of them have died of heart ailments, and at the time they weren't peace freaks, they were paranoid as hell.
It was drugs that did in the "flower children" - the influx of heavy druggies was dark and criminal and the "children" pulled back out of the line of fire.
Yes, I was there, at the peak, in the Fairfax (which was soon returned to the Jewish community), hob-knobing with the likes of Ronnie Cobb (once famous political cartoonist, later designer of Alien).
It was a very fun time, and I miss it lots, but I know a few pockets that remain, and I intend to return there from this computer crap - soon I hope.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #9,661
9/18/01 11:27:40 PM
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An original explanation! and maybe, pretty good :-\ufffd
Heh - got a couple decades on ya.. not that I believe my take on the local scene has any statistical validity, though I think I noticed the Berkeley and Bay area milieu pretty alertly..
As with your Moscow story - we're all creatures of the accidents of (WTF, it's a clear idea) 'peak experiences' - the ones that create permanent memory of the smells, sounds - virtually everything. So that night with the KGB and "actually helping a father!" must remain pretty vivid today (?).
Hardly comparable in adrenalin; by accident I met the Maharishi (Mahesh Yogi; also a physicist) in late '60s at lab. Being main honcho of the day, I got to stick next to him as we checked out our fancy machines. And actually looking him in the eyes from a couple feet away proved an 'odd' experience. I knew zippo about his gig, at the time (well - a few hints). But my impression became, after a half-hour of wandering about ~ "whatever this guy is, he isn't a phony.." (Meaning nothing re followers or their versions - then or later, of course). Anyway, that started for me an investigation of sorts, then other angles and self-experiments. Next throw in the RFK assassination (he Would have won) and...
So - we're such creatures. (Whenever someone tells me about their 'organizer' and how planned is their ascent up the corp. grey ladder to inanity yada yada - it is to laugh.) I deemed we were in for it when Nixon got back in power (after humiliation in CA gov. race in early '60s). I had a friend "hosed down" the city hall steps in SF - protesting a planned *HUAC "investigation" of local teachers, also early '60s. Began to actually pay attention to how Murican matters were manipulated ~ from those times.
* - We won! - chased the bastards outta town: that was the *last* scheduled HUAC witch hunt ever! Bill Mandel opening remarks, "Honorable beaters of children..". It was Glorious. This event began.. Murica's growth from political infancy. We almost reached adolescence.
Your explanation might be close - there were indeed some fine minds, undulled by the temptations to just play; there was dedication and a lot of it selfless - as we haven't seen around - til a week ago, IMhO. And there was lots of noise - a *rejection* of the dull, grey Eisenhower years, at last! And for some -- acid indeed opened minds; it wasn't meant for recreation, though always are the excessive around.
(A friend, Ian Underwood - went practically from a Mozart piano recital at Hertz Hall ---> to play with Frank Zappa! so I later got to meet the Mothers..) They were (I think all, then) prof. musicians - could transpose, play classical as well - and on a shrug from FZ, could do so in mid-selection. Not your kid players from a garage..
Accidents. Unexpected events. I'm grateful for some quite unMurican experiences - it isn't our style to question the daily 'reality' in this culture, or to turn off the noise.
I see today a hint of that 'danger + opportunity' of the RFK time; he was a rich kid who actually, finally Got it. We'll have to do with less, next. Might make it.. Believe we underestimate the brilliant few among us, via these stupid 'Xers' labels; here's a chance for some growing-up fast, to next occur.
Nostalgia ain't what it used to be,
A.
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